The new broadcasting paradigm needs to connect with a new set of users. This morning I asked my 11 year old if she want to watch the Olympics (either online or on TV) – she said that she’d rather go to the movies. Very telling.

Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel for Google, testifies before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law at a May 20, 2008 hearing on Global Internet Freedom. Topics of discussion include Google’s commitment to freedom of expression, our efforts to meet challenges posed by legal and cultural barriers to the free flow of information, and the role of governments in reducing Internet censorship and promoting free expression.

The issue here is about censorship and human rights – war for Internet Freedom. Broadband access provides value – plain and simple. Freedom to access the internet will create huge opportunities. Before I wrote this post I just got off a collaborative chat with engineers in Europe who are building products for me. That benefit wasn’t there years ago. Areas that deprive Internet access are denying freedom and economic benefits to both individuals and their countries.

The war in Iraq is stupid. The real war is a new kind of cold war – ‘wired war’.. It’s a war online – It’s a WAR OF IDEAS. The country that is most connected will win this new ‘cold war’.

Pull the troops out of Iraq; connect the world – then fight this new war online. Send in the bloggers, twitters, diggers, stumblers… 🙂

Over the past 7 months I have been developing a engagement algorithm and metric for social media (mainly video). The key component is the embed data on the shared widget. Today, Youtube announced analytics but where’s the beef on the embed data from their player.

Developing and engagement algorithm is critical for understanding the effectiveness of content and advertising (or content advertising) in social networks. Is YouTube missing the boat? Most likely this is their gen 1 product and look to see viral sharing data from YouTube. It’s a must have.

If you’re in the video platform, advertising, or widget platform business you’re either scared to death or happy. YouTube just became a great partner or the devil of a competitor.

YouTube’s Jim Patterson – blogger and product management dude – writes, ” Technically, we have introduced some new APIs. (This is just a geeky acronym for Awesomely Powerful Interactions, which is what users are now capable of performing from just about anywhere.) Building upon our existing APIs for querying the YouTube library and playing embedded YouTube videos, we have added the following new API services for external developers and partners: